New Computer

I know, I've been gone for a very long time. I had major computer problems, in between trying to save the computer, I went to Mexico, redid the back of my house, and spent a lot of time with the Easy Tech guys in Staples!

Final verdict, had a great time in Mexico, Family Room and Kitchen are coming amazing, and I purchased a new Sony Vaio, and did lose many of my pictures.

I am back now, and after much thought, realized that this project in the back of the house is also the result of an empty nest. So, even though it's not the amazing scrap room I have designed, I do love it and will take you through it. Finally, after 29 years, we almost have a home designed for adults!

Nate's fault!

DH is mad at Nate Berkus! Told me I have to stop watching him, I get too many ideas! The reason for this whole redo in the back of the house is really Nate's fault!! I was watching Oprah one day, and Nate was in a bedroom of a couple that he said was stuck in the 80's. I personally liked the way the bedroom looked, of course I did, as I was watching and they were showing the wallpaper and curtains, the curtain I had hanging in the back door was right next to the tv, and I thought OMG I have the same pattern on my curtains! I then looked around and realized, we hadn't done anything back there in 20 years!

As we were tearing down the wallpaper last week, they replayed part of this episode on Oprah's farewell to Nate. You could see the steam coming out of DH's ears! LOL

I think it's going to look great when it's done, it just takes us a long time to get it all together.

Need to pick out the paint tomorrow, and tonight the guy is coming to measure for blinds!

I know my primary goal this year was to get out of this scrap corner and into a real room. I'm still working on that. Don't want to overwhelm the man doing most of the work! Meanwhile, I'm going to keep watching Nate's new show for more ideas!

HECTIC

Hello there my fellow emptynest, scraproom building, scrapbookers! I know you have been wondering where I am? BUSY BUSY BUSY! The bad news, it's not been with my scrapbook room, the good news, well, there's plenty of that!

First and foremost, DD#2 came home to visit! It was so wonderful spending the weekend with both my girls! We did some venue shopping, just the 4 of us, and guess what? We have a wedding date and place! Exactly 13 months from today! Gives us time to work on that little detail while taking care of day to day stuff.

Second, she finished cleaning out her room! That in itself is totally exciting. I asked DH when we were going to start, and he said after we get home from Florida, IN APRIL! I don't think so!

We have been totally involved with redoing the back of the house. The back of our house is one "great room" Kitchen, work area and table area, and family room, all in one space. For about 5 years now I have been looking to replace my kitchen set. Could not find something that matched with what I had going on back there, and I wanted something totally different than what I had. So glad I waited! We found this place that puts together just what you want, base, table top, chairs, wood, fabric, whatever! Next I found a basic couch and loveseat, a change from the ginormous pit we have had the last 20 years so that there was room for all the friends that always hung out here! Then DH and I started ripping down the 20 year old wallpaper! Came off easy enough, left the glue, which we also took off. Found out we have to prime with oil based paint. That will be next. Meanwhile we just finished polyurethaning all the windows and doors back there to give them new life.

I did pick my color paint, didn't buy it yet, and have a friend coming to show us window and door treatments on thursday!

Most of my time has been taken up with this remodel project, but I'm happy it's getting done. Little does DH know, but I plan on ripping out the wallpaper in the little downstairs bathroom real soon! I already found a paint for that room, and some new accessories. Not much else has to be done there, then the whole downstairs is new and almost finished (we will need crown moulding done in the back, and still looking for a couch for the living room, but it's not a necessity.)

Anyway, this is what has been keeping me busy. Moved the snake to the basement, but we still have him, and the cats are still making me crazy.

This is what life is all about isn't it?

That Darn Cat

I'm sitting at my desk, just staring at the mess, and I looked to see what time it is. Looked at that really cute clock I made with pictures of my girls, the one that makes me smile every time I look at it. Except now! Why IS the secondhand bent straight out at a weird angle? Why WOULD the secondhand be bent straight out at a weird angle? HOW would the secondhand be bent straight out at a weird angle? MMMMMM maybe if a cat saw it moving and jumped up on my desk, onto my laptop which is always open and always on, and then proceeded to jump up to try to catch the moving secondhand???? YA THINK?

Ok, I'm complaining a lot and doing nothing. This waiting for the room to be cleaned out is killing me! I've picked my colors, my floor, my furniture. Designed the layout, thought about a desk, a chair, etc! I know, all this I've kept to myself, figured why share it if it doesn't seem to be happening.

I think the first thing I'm going to do is take an ad out on Craigs List and get rid of the snake. Yep, I said snake. He's 15 years old and lives in a 55 gallon fish tank, on the furniture in this empty room. He used to be in my room, till the cats went crazy, before that he was in #1's room, since he was hers, but she ran out of room in there. I need him out of #2's room so I can have people come look at her furniture.

Anyone want a cute 15year old Florida King Snake?

Bad Mother

My daughter will be home in about 3 weeks to visit, and I know she will not finish in her room. I'm wondering if it is wrong to actually sell her furniture and put her stuff in boxes till she can get to it? Is that like packing her up and pushing her out? Is it wrong to want her room this badly? I don't want her to feel I'm more interested in having my own space than having a place for her to stay. I love my girls, and of course they are welcome to stay here as long as they need. BUT REALLY!

I'm so ready to move on! Girl cat snuck past the screens somehow and once again stole a flower off my desk. My husband wants to know why I can't clean up, why do I leave everything out. He does not understand that once I take the layout apart, I'm never going to remember what I was thinking with it. I think I may actually order myself some of those boxes with the magnets. You know, the ones that keep your layouts together when you are not finished with them?

I'm really not happy scrapping here any longer, I guess I could clean it up a little better, that might help, but her room has been sitting empty for a year now. She has been home twice to visit. By next month she will have her wedding date picked, does that mean I can pack up her room?

Will doing this make me a bad mother?

ARRRRGH

I was having such a nice peaceful weekend, the weather is beautiful and I got some quality outdoor time with my husband and the dog. I was even scrapping! Even though my desk was a mess, I was able to work on a few different layouts at the same time, printing, looking for papers, finding embellishments. I am trying to prepack stuff in case I go on any crops in the near future.


I had bought these very pretty flowers at the Expo, took just one of them out to use on this layout, the color was absolutely PERFECT!




This is what the flower looked like....

and this is what I found left of it on my desk, my desk that had stuff ALL OVER IT and had screens up blocking the entrance to it!

Anyone want a cat, or two??

Why I Have to Move!

Well, I'm kind of back on track here. Figured out the Kobo, really not too hard once you understand what you are doing. Spent some quality time with #1 last night shopping. Gotta grab those rare moments while I still can, and now I'm back in my corner. I'm supposed to be cleaning up so I can prepackage some layouts. My girlfriend and I are thinking of doing a weekend crop next weekend, if there is still room available, but this desk is such a mess, I am procrastinating! So here I am....

As I already mentioned, I love how my corner is put together, everything within reach, BUT I've run out of room! It's gotten so crowded here, and I have to keep the Cricut Expression in #2's room, bring it in here, and clear off room when I want to use it. Which, as you can imagine, means I hardly ever use it at all! It's too much work!

When I sit at my desk now, I'm actually reaching at a weird angle, because I can't fit with all the stuff on the floor!

I have upgraded my printer, something I wasn't going to do till I had room, but mine went and I couldn't see not getting the larger one now, except it doesn't fit!

Worse than running out of room I discovered something else that put me over the edge! For some time, I was losing things, finding things on the floor, out in the hallway, on the stairs, I just kept saying, I'm too cluttered, it's a mess! Then one day I came upstairs and found DD#1's girl cat (we call her "girl") sitting in the middle of my papers, when she saw me, she jumped and ran, and everything on my desk went flying in all directions!

For awhile, I kept moving things off, chasing her, but it didn't work, so I devised a way to put screens up blocking her. No good! It deters her most of the time, but she has found her way past them a few times.




Just this last week, I found DD#1's "boy" cat sitting inside the screens! (yes, we call him boy, both have real names, just this is what stuck).

Now understand, I've been here for years and my two well mannered felines do not come on my desk! Paige is too sweet and old, she just comes around my feet,






and Skylar, well, no better way to say it than he's just too fat! At just under 30lbs he's not jumping on anything!

So now, along with the clutter, I have cats getting in here, and these large screens right behind me. Most days now I turn around fast in my chair and crash into the screens, which sends them flying into the banister, or down the stairs.

Coming to my "Happy Place" just isn't making me happy anymore!

Something New

Well, instead of scrapping, or working on getting rid of DD's furniture so I can have her room, I went out and bought an EReader. I purchased the Kobo from Borders. Too bad I have no idea what I'm doing and am ready to throw the darn thing out the window!

I'm thinking maybe I should let it charge completely before I try anything else, or really get totally frustrated with it. I should learn my lesson from my IPod which is sitting in my desk drawer with only 100 songs on it, for the last 4 years since I can't ever remember how to add songs to the darn thing! Or, for that matter, now that my computer was fixed and the Tech deleted everything from it, how to get ITunes back on my computer!

I need a kid in the house! It's times like these that I really miss the girls being here, not that they would help me, but there was always a boyfriend around that could answer any questions I had.

Well, #1 will be home tomorrow night and hopefully she can help me out with this new toy, might as well get her to get my IPod working also!

have a good night all...

Is Something Wrong With Me?

Ok, I admit it, I need help! Really! Do you think there is something wrong with me, when I'm laying in Yoga, during deep relaxation, and the music is soft and no one is talking and instead of making my mind blank....

I'm decorating my scraproom in my head?

It's been a busy weekend for me, along with normal life, I tried to spend as much time as I could on ACOT's Online Summer Crop. For those that have never done it, it's so much fun! Games, challenges, loads of nice people and great ideas.

I was only able to get 5 challenges done, not bad out of 10. Did not have time to play any games, nor do any of the fastscraps.

Challenge #1 was to scraplift Creative Team member's layout...

This was the layout I scraplifted from FairyMouseMom's gallery....



and I came up with this based on her layout...

Challenge #2 was to get your inspiration from the following ad....



this was the layout I came up with....



Challenge #3 was to use the 6, 7 and 8, meaning 6 of something, 7 of something and 8 of something. I used 6 flowers, 7 lines of journaling and 8 pictures...



Challenge #4 was to take any piece of ugly paper...



and use it in a different capacity. I used my cuddlebug to make flowers and buttons. I cut out a journaling circle, and used a punch for little butterflies.




Challenge # 5 was easy, just scrap an old picture. Since I am still working on pictures as far back as 2004, this was not a problem for me!



and finally, what was probably my favorite challenge, #9, scraplift an old layout of your own!

I picked one I did a few years back of the girls on christmas day...



and did this with it....


Hope your weekend was just as productive!

My Happy Place

Now, finally, to where I'm at now. I call it my Happy Place, and honestly, I love it! DH did an amazing job giving me exactly what I wanted, and for the most part, it worked. I say "worked" because, alas, I have outgrown it. Or, better said, my supplies have outgrown it!

When the girls outgrew their playroom in the attic, DH asked if I wanted to move up there. I thought about it briefly, but decided it was too far away from the hub of the family, and since the girls were now young adults, I did not want them thinking back and remembering that their mom was always locked away in the attic scrapping! I loved being close to them and all that was happening, so I decided to stay outside their rooms.

We got rid of everything that was in my corner to begin with and started fresh and new. Thank goodness for Michaels and their storage sales! Everything purchased at 40% and some things even with that special 50% coupon!

Here is a picture of the finished product:







Although the space looks big, it's the same 6ft wide by 5ft deep space I always had right at the top of our stairs.



The first wall on my left has 8 units (stacked two together) in various stages of 4 drawers, 3 drawers, and paper holders (under the desk)





On top of that DH cut plywood to be my "desk" all around in a U-shape. He put one shelf about 8 inches up, and on that I stacked plastic drawers which I labeled for easy identification.





My main work area has two Iris carts under it with tools and files in it, and two Making Memories Embellishment centers on the wall.




When I turn my chair to the right, I have two more drawer units another Making Memories Embellishment Center, and my printer.






To finish everything off, DH put shelves along the top, which hold more paper, scrapbooks finished and unfinished, boxes holding finished layouts not yet put in a book, and idea books and magazines.








I truly love my area, everything labeled and right at my fingertips!

coming next: Why I have to move!

Winging her way home!

I got some great news yesterday! DD#2 is heading home for a quick visit! Basically she is coming home to book her wedding venue, BUT she told me she will clean out her room some more also! Not sure which is most exciting for me, the fact that I will see her soon, we will book a wedding date, OR that I can start my room!

First Scrap Corner

Hello Fellow Scrappers! Been awhile! A few things going on here, first DD#2 has me calling around looking for wedding venues, and second I have been searching my computer for pictures of my first official scrap corner! Only found one, yet I know I just saw a few of them!

Anyway, I moved upstairs to the little alcove outside the girls bedrooms. The desk was already there, I added one of those nut and bolt holders with the tiny drawers to the wall, it held the few little things I owned at the time. I had researched online and found that people were buying the metal cube sets at Target or Walmart and assembling them differently to make a paper holder, so I did that.

I then purchased a canned goods rack, the kind you put on the back of the pantry door, put that on the wall, and underneath that I had a drop down shelf. This gave me a place to actually do my scrapping since the desk had the desktop comuter, printer, and the racks with the paper on it, left me very little scrapping room. I was able to drop down the shelf when I was done, and that gave me in and out access to the area.

I also purchased baby wipes in clear plastic containers, used the wipes for work and used the containers as holders for all kinds of things.



I now had an official place to scrap!


coming next.... My Happy Place!

The First Scrap Area

I guess I started out scrapping like most of you did, sitting at my kitchen table with whatever I could carry in from other parts of the house. I had things all over, in bags.....

Piled high on my dining room chairs.....

The drawers in my dining room hutch, usually used for holding things like candles and hardly used entertaining items, now held scrapping supplies stuffed in till they couldn't open!

Of course I had the requisite Iris Rolling Cart. Something I tried to keep in the basement. I would carry upstairs just the drawer up that I needed, but eventually it became a permanent fixture in my dining room.

I kept things on the shelves at the bottom of the basement stairs....

and on a big folding table I kept opened in the basement. Luckily the basement is not a finished basement, it's used for storage, so this mess didn't really bother anyone.

Meanwhile, the computer and printer were upstairs on the second floor, in a little alcove we have outside all the bedrooms, right at the top of the stairs. It was housed on a cheap desk we purchased at Staples. This was where I was scanning, printing, and doing all my journaling, so eventually I spread out up here also.

All said and done it was the worst of all situations and I'm not sure how I continued to scrap under these conditions, but I did, and eventually the running from the basement to the second floor back to the kitchen constantly over and over got to me, so I sat DH down and discussed what to do. It was decided we would make the computer desk a little more functional for me, and add some things to the corner to make it easier for me to scrap.

coming next....

The First Real Scrap Corner

Mommasaurus

A quick post about the name. Mommasaurus. Everytime DH and I would tell the girls a story about "when we were younger" they would counter with "back when dinasaurs roamed the earth". This was and still is a standard reply anytime we tell a story. Eventually DD#2 just started to use Mommasaurus in addressing things to me. I thought it was so much more personal and cooler than just "mom" and of course "mommy" no longer came out of their mouths, so it just stuck.

coming next....the scraproom.....finally!

learning

So I'm still learning how this blog thing works, want to iron out all the kinks before I start blogging about what I'm supposed to be blogging about, the new scraproom!

Right now I want to see how pictures included look, so here's a picture of Cooper playing in his little pool in June.

The Start of Scrapping

I guess I have always scrapped in some form. My photos were all in magnetic albums with cute sayings written on the pages. I got that from my dad's old albums, and I guess he probably got it from his father in law, my grandfather who was into photography, because the old albums all had my grandfather's neat handwriting on those black pages. One day, after my father's death, my brother and I sat all night taking the pictures out of Dad's album, placing them in one of mine, and carefully cutting out all Dad's writings and placing them on the page. Simple, but enough to make Mom cry, and very happy.

When I was very little I actually had one of those big old fashioned scrapbooks, with pictures of all my heart throbs in it! I still have this book and do intend to someday place it in an All About Me album that I started years ago, and only did 2 pages in!

I continued on taking tons of pictures, letting them accumulate for a year or two, and then putting them in albums, then September 11 happened.

I will not go deep into it, it was a hard time for everyone, at that point DH was Captain of L101 and he was home, but his men answered the call, and never came back. DH was never home after that, so I started saving articles, messages from phone calls, and emails that I thought he would want to see. Then came the funerals and memorials, at the first one, DH asked me to please take pictures. I was embarassed, but did it while hiding. One of the widows noticed me, and after that I was asked to take pictures at all the funerals or memorials we had.

I now had tons and tons of stuff I didn't know what to do with, so a friend suggested I do what she was doing and place it in an album. I had material embroidered "7 in heaven" and wrapped a looseleaf book, bought page protectors from Staples, and started assembling. With scissors and glue!

Not one of the best examples of scrapping, but when it was done it brought many a man (and woman) to tears. I will never redo this book for sentimental reasons, but it was the first. My friend that told me to scrap it showed me hers, she used fancy scissors and stickers! HUH?!?!? What was this thing she did? I was so intriqued I decided I was going to do a new scrapbook, of something else, and try all this stuff!

I decided the girls needed a special 21st birthday present. DD#1 was 20 and DD#2 was 18, I would scrap their lives from birth to 21! One of the largest undertaking I ever did in my life. I first had to put the last 3 years in photo albums, then scan and organize all these pictures.

It took me two years to do each girls books, but it was the start! Another friend introduced me to AC Moore, and my first LSS and it was off I went. I have learned so much since then, so much in fact that I promised #1 I would redo just a few of the very first pages in her book, they really are terrible, lol.

Now I scrap everything. My yearly photo albums are yearly scrapbooks, and every vaction or special occasion gets its own book. I am constantly learning new techniques and some pages are way better than others, but I'm still loving it, and still loving that first book I ever did.

coming next..... hopefully..... some scrapbook pictures

The Early Film Years

Wow, is it every muggy out there today! Good day to catch up on here, although part of me really wants to finish this layout I'm working on.

I became interested in photography at a really young age. My maternal grandfather was an amateur photographer and dabbled in all aspects of it. It was him who showed us 8mm movies on the pull down screen at every holiday, and I moaned when it was old films of old people, how I wish I had those films now! It was also him who handed over his darkroom equipment when I was 15 and taking photography classes in school. I set up in my parents home and became enchanted with the 4 x 4 negatives my grandfather gave me of my mom when she was younger.

I took photography in high school, and again in college, although I became a secretary because my dad told me it was a job I could fall back on if anything every happened to my husband. I guess he pretty much figured out I was going to marry the kid I was dating, and although he was headed for Wall Street, he did take that NYC Fire Department exam, so it was good advice at the time!

Years later, when it was time to go back to work, I found a job taking pictures of kids in school. (yeah, the ones that you usually hated the way your kids looked, hey! it wasn't our fault, we had 20 minutes to take 30 kids) I was so excited that I was able to call my grandfather and tell him I had gotten a job as a photographer. A year later he died of a massive heart attack. I retired from that job about 2 years ago, the same time DH retired from the Fire Department (yes, he did switch jobs!)

I still had the same Minolta SR100 that my parents bought me in high school. It was banged up, beat up, and even dropped in Lake George when I was 16, but I held fast to the fact that I was NEVER going digital. HAHAHAHAHA First, the Minolta pretty much was giving me fits (although DD#2, getting her Masters in Photography still uses it from time to time) So I went out and bought a nice 35mm Nikon with all kinds of lenses. Of couse, being new, it was all electronic and didn't really last all that long. It was about then that I realized if I had a digital I could take a kabillion pictures and delete the ones I didn't like, or take all those artsy pictures I was always afraid to take because I had to pay for them to get developed. So I headed to Best Buy and bought my first digital camera, a Nikon, small point and shoot, slow as anything, but I was hooked! I now use a Nikon D50, and all my original lenses fit on this camera, plus I've bought a few more. Unfortunately for me, DD#2 has the D500 or something like that, and I really want it, but can't justify the need!

I also carry a small Canon in my bag, I mean really, I'm a scrapper, you never know when I'll need to document something!

coming next....

The Start of Scrapping

A New Journey

Well, this is it, the start of a new journey, trying my hand at a blog! Not like I don't spend enough time as it is sitting at this computer! I decided to do this because I wanted to record the progression of the designing and building of my new scraproom. Now, this would be an exciting thing to be doing, if only I could actually be doing it! Instead I have to wait for #2 to empty her room completely, an impossible thing to do since she lives in New Mexico at the current time, but I am jumping ahead. Today is just the start of the blog, so I'm typing my first post, going to see how it looks, and then play around with the look. I'll be back in a day or two, tell you a little about myself, and start getting some pictures on here. Join me on my new journey!